The present invention relates to a tugger and rider cart assembly and, more particularly, to a rider cart that may be easily attached to a tugger cart.
In the world of intra-plant material handling, a common approach to conveying material from one location to another is called a tugger/push cart system. The system consists of three components; a tugger truck, tugger cart, and push cart. The tugger truck pulls a train of tugger carts, with push carts on board, from location to location in a factory or warehouse. For example, the push carts are loaded with material at a picking station or supermarket. They are then loaded on to the tugger carts. After that, they are tugged to the unload area, unloaded off of the tugger carts, and pushed into their final position on the assembly line. At this point, the empty tugger carts may be reloaded with empty push carts and returned to the picking station.
One issue companies have with this type of system is being able to efficiently and ergonomically load and unload the push carts on to the tugger carts. Currently, hydraulic and manual devices are used. The hydraulic lift solution increases cost, presents plant safety issues (oil on the floor), and requires more equipment maintenance. Also, if a plant already has a fleet of tugger trucks they will probably have to change their entire fleet to special tugger trucks that have hydraulic systems driving even more cost. Both methods require an operator to pull a cart out of the tugger cart which is a very difficult motion and can cause an operator to over exert himself. The manual solution requires four swivel casters which makes the carts difficult to control while being pushed.
As can be seen, there is a need for an improved tugger and push cart system.